Like any really big explosion, there are still lots of big chunks up in the air. Every so often another big chunk crashes back to earth somewhere. The trick is to be not standing where it lands.
In talking to Donal yesterday, he pointed out that my rant on copyright had one serious flaw. Copyright is irrelevant. When we all have the means of production, the limit on ownership becomes moot. When we all have the means of collating information from source data, education becomes something we each do for ourselves. When we all have the means of by-passing authority, governments become irrelevant.
Governments don’t like to be irrelevant. It takes all the fun away. This is a dangerous time because governments tried to lock down the means of production. When they couldn’t do that, they tried to lock down the means of distribution. They couldn’t do that, and now they’re trying to lock down thought through religious fundamentalism. They’ll lock my brain when they pry it from my cold, dead body, but a dinosaur in his death throes can still crush you if you stand too close.
What’s left now is how to make a living in the aftermath.
March 25th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
Nate,
While we all may have the means of production, as individuals within the world of the academy there is a tier system at play that we have to abide by. For example, regardless of how brillant you may (or may not) be within this blog when I am writing a paper either for a course or for publication, my professors will not accept a reference to this blog as a credible source. In fact, many of them will look with suspicion upon citations from online journals (as compared to more traditional and established publications).
This reality means that we (you as a junior faculty member and me as a doctoral student) still have to be concerned with copyright issues that are imposed upon us by these traditional and established publications. While the likes of Lawrence Lessig (see http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002780.shtml) or Stephen Downes (see http://www.downes.ca/) can get away with stands that disregard the prohibitive copyright practices of these traditional and estalished journals, they are still very much a reality for you and I (and those like us).
March 26th, 2005 at 5:20 am
True, Mike. But also predicated on two assumptions.
a. That I care about P&T.
There are lots of opportunities for me to make a living with my skills and knowledge that do not involve dealing with the artificialities of paper prejudice. The academy has a strangle-hold on credentials at the moment. That grip will need to shift or the academy will disappear.
b. That P&T policy and practice remains unchanged.
If the fundamentalists of the world get their way, tenure as we know it today will be erased. The Churchill situation should be a wake-up call for the academy. Whatever you think about what he has written, it is clear that the US is no longer willing to support free-range thinking.
March 26th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
Research and Publication
Recently, I have noticed a number of blog entries that have dealt with the topic of the difficulties in publishing in academic journals and the copyright issues associated with them (see Cognitive Dissonance, Who’s Deadline is it Anyway, Learning Rock…
March 27th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
As Blogger doesn’t do trackbacks, see my post at http://mkbabd.blogspot.com/2005/03/this-whole-publishing-racket.html which references this entry.
March 28th, 2005 at 10:28 pm
[...] rt discussing the matter of writing in the academic world and the crux with journals (see Nate and my earlier posting), the closed nature of our writing products (see Lessig) or as we might call it th [...]